The World Forgetting by the World Forgot
by rabbithabits
Summary: The boy that left, the boy that got left behind, and the world that kept turning. Mostly.


**for my two people.**

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><p><em>"Know what, Rox?"<em>

_Roxas didn't know, and he didn't answer. Sora would tell him even if he did know. That's just how these things worked._

_"You're not happy 'cause you're always looking back. 'Member how we went to the carnival and you said you'd never be that happy again? Carnivals. You're always comparing what's happening to you in any moment against cotton candy and going on the Tornado 'til we puke. Even now." He slapped his hand against Roxas's knee, nearly knocking off the popcorn that was sitting there. He looked right in his counterpart's eyes, face serious except for a trademark sparkle in his eyes. "It's beautiful. Just you and me, your parents are out, and we have bad movies. And you're sitting there thinking about carnivals."_

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><p>What I do and don't remember are so far apart now. It's strange how I can barely remember the colour of his hair but I remember the very specific way it stuck up at odd angles, I can't remember his voice but I remember the way his voice wobbled while he sang, I can't remember which side of the room his bed was in, but I remember the way his ribs strained against his skin, making pretty little lines on his stomach.<p>

He used to call me Prince. I loved him immediately, in my own awkward way. When we met, I was centimeters taller and endlessly more stoic, so he deemed me Princely, elongated to Prince Lee in fourth grade, shortened to Prince in fifth, disappeared in eighth when two high schoolers called us faggots, reappeared the day a doctor looked him right in the eye and told him that he had leukemia. He called me Rox when he was being cute, Roxas when he was angry, Prince when he was tired. Prince when he was loving. Prince when he was lonely. Prince until the day he died.

Which didn't take long, really.

What I remember was math. I don't remember the phone call. I don't even remember leaving class. All I remember is the careless before, the empty after. I can't draw a picture of him anymore, just the negative space around him, the way a young man told me that there were support groups for things like this with the most apathetic face I've ever seen, the way a janitor with obnoxious red hair grinned and asked me why I looked so down while I sat there in a fucking hospital. A hospital.

And I don't remember the funeral. And I don't remember the wake. And I don't remember the way his mouth crinkled up a little more on the right when he smiled and called me Prince or the way his voice got high pitched when he was lying. I needed photos the remind me of that. I needed crappy home videos to remind me of that.

I go back to the hospital every day. I sit outside of his room. Strictly speaking, I'm not supposed to. But I want to see that grief counsellor. I want to see that janitor. Because the rest of the world keeps turning. His parents barely function. I don't. And the rest of the world keeps acting like nothing happened. I want to grab these people by the neck and shake them, to tell them to stop moving and stop laughing and stop eating and stop working because the only reason the world kept spinning was because Sora was in it. But the world keeps on trucking because it doesn't care about sick little boys who made peace with their death and people only care long enough to pause and move on to new ones.

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><p><em>"Prince?" <em>

_"Yeah, I'm still here."_

_"Are you?"_

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><p>"Oh, hey, kid." The man with the obnoxious hair; Roxas could tell without looking. But when he tilted his head up, a thousand sharp words ready on his tongue, he deflated a little. He wasn't wearing that shit-eating grin from before, he just looked sheepish and... tired. Roxas looked back down, not saying anything. This man seemed to take that as an invitation to keep going, to assuage his guilt.<p>

"Sorry 'bout the other day. I didn't know."

Blank stare blank stare blank stare at the floor if you keep looking at it hard enough it will collapse and just swallow you up and maybe you can be with Sora in the center of the Earth.

"Zex told me that... yeah."

Swallow me up swallow me up swallow me up.

"Mind if I sit here with you?"

Silence. Silence then a small rustle of him turning around and plopping down next to Roxas. The way he did it made Roxas bristle minorly before thinking that it didn't really matter and he didn't really care. He was ultra aware of the nurses and doctors and families walking around. He wondered how many would have a dead relative in a minute. A dead best friend. He wondered if their loved ones were already dead. And if they had bad grief counsellors and if the man with obnoxious hair would ask them insensitive questions. Mostly they ignored him. No one seemed to worry about the sad little blonde kid with the blank stare.

There he sat with his hospital acquaintance, who didn't say anything else for two and a half hours before Roxas stood up and left. A small echo followed him.

"Same time tomorrow, blondie?"

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><p><em>"Do you like being here with me, Prince?"<em>

_"'Course I do."_

_"Then be be here with me."_

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><p>an: yeah so this happened. this is still happening, i think. i'm gonna try to keep this going if my emotions don't catch up with me first.


End file.
